Reservations to purchase services or products are customarily either made in person, by phone or through use of an on-line reservation system. It is to be understood that “service” is used throughout this specification as including both services and products, and should be so understood by a person of skill in the art.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the basic principles of prior art reservation systems. The figure generally describes a customer 20 contacting a network, such as a phone or computer network 22, to make a reservation with a particular service provider 24. Using the system, the customer 20 selects a date and time for her reservation, submitting her request to the reservation system 22. Once the information is received by the reservation system 22, the reservation is verified, often against the reservation system's electronic database of available times and days for particular services. If the date or time is not available, the customer 20 is prompted by the reservation system 22 to select another date or time. If the date and time are available, the reservation system 22 reserves the reservation in known fashion.
On the day and time of the reservation, the customer will often travel to the service provider 24, requesting and then receiving reserved and/or other services. The customer next often receives a bill for services provided, paying the bill by the tender of cash, check or credit card. Often, the customer then waits for the transaction to be completed by the receipt of change or authorization/verification of the check or that the credit account has sufficient credit to cover incurred charges.
When credit is used as a payment method, the typical credit authorization process limits the speed at which the transaction can take place. For instance, typically a customer receives a bill for services rendered. The customer, after reviewing the bill, must then often attract the attention of the service provider to hand a credit device, such as a card, to the service provider, who then must obtain an authorization from any one of several known credit authorizing systems. It is not uncommon for this total process to take in excess of several minutes. To obtain that authorization, a vendor normally runs the credit device and/or other account information through its POS or other type of known verifying system. Some examples of known POS systems are Micros, Aloha and Maitre'd. The process, while sometimes only taking seconds, can take much more time.
Once authorization has been achieved, a bill is provided to the customer, who then may add a gratuity and/or sign the receipt. Once that has occurred, the customer is generally free to leave. Once the customer has left, however, the vendor still often must enter an included gratuity, utilizing more of both the vendor's and the credit card authorization system's time and assets. Obviously, the prior art process is cumbersome to both the customer and provider.
The security of credit account information, identification information and perhaps other information is also always at issue in the traditional service provider-customer credit payment transaction process. The traditional transaction model usually requires payment by the use of an actual card or other instrument. Under this transaction model, the customer's credit card and, often times, some form of personal identification (such as a driver's license) leaves the possession of the customer at the time authorization is performed. Unscrupulous third-parties (including service provider staff, other customers, etc.) may then have access to the customer's credit account and personal identification information. With that access, it is possible for the third party to perpetrate any number of forms of identity theft and/or other fraud upon the customer.
Also, under the traditional service provider-customer credit account transaction model, customers typically only become aware that their credit line has been or is about to be exceeded after a failed attempt for authorization occurs. For a customer, it may be embarrassing to find out that a proposed credit charge has been denied. A denied credit request also may be frustrating and worrisome to the service provider, who may question whether the customer will be able to ultimately tender payment for services rendered.
The present invention addresses these and other issues raised by known systems. For instance, under a preferred embodiment of the inventive system, a customer will be informed prior to obtaining services from the service provider as to whether or not their chosen credit account has a sufficient credit line for the services to be provided. Also, under the preferred system, the service provider is never provided with the customer's account information. Rather, all the service provider receives is preauthorization information—the account information remains securely stored within the reservation system. Also, by preauthorizing payment for services to be provided, the overall payment process will be streamlined, potentially eliminating the entire at-the-provider authorization step, saving both the vendor and customer time and effort.